The oldest electric locomotive in service leads you to the Valley of Hell

The oldest electric locomotive in service leads you to the Valley of Hell

The preparations

As the Wien-Raaber Bahn reached the feet of the Semmering pass and later on, as the pass railway (the world's first-ever mountain railway) was developed, the flourishing, wet, lumber-heavy valleys in the area attracted loads of investors. Neusiedler AG wanted to build a paper mill along the Schwarza river to exploit the dense pinewood forests of the area and therefore the planning of a standard-gauge railway from Südbahn's Payerbach-Reichenau station to Hirschwang (the village at the feet of the Raxalpe, to house the paper mill) and a branch to Prien, both electrified by DC, was started.

Photo of the Week: Narrow-gauge Freight on the Lillafüred Forestry Railway

The D02-508 is a class Mk48 diesel-hydraulic locomotive that serves on the 76-cm-gauge Lillafüred Forest Railway (Lillafüredi Erdei Vasút). Though freight service is discontinued and only tourist excursion trains are operated on the two-line network building trains need some goods cars and therefore sometimes train enthusiasts can organize colourful photo charters with them. On this occasion the Mk48 pulled the freight and the photographers travelled in a separate train hauled by a class C50 small diesel locomotive:

The Situation of Train Travel in Hungary

Currently, Hungary is going through gradual release after a semi-serious lockdown state, however, some restrictions are broken down more difficultly than others. Similarly to some other East-Central-Europe states, Hungary managed to cancel most of the capabilities of the Covid-19 virus to spread and the only major concern is the infection of many hospital workers and the internal spreading of the infection across different parts of the hospital, resulting in patients of other illnesses to be returning home infected; often to homes for the elderly or homeless shelters. Because of the very low level of infections in the outside world, the government's primary concern is the re-introduction of the virus through foreign visitors, so for any Hungarians returning from abroad a two-week quarantine at home is ordered.

Daily commuting is possible to some of the neighbouring states like Austria (without limits) or Slovakia (to 30 km distance from the border station). Other international travel is mostly prohibited or requires quarantine on both entry to the foreign country and re-entry home. Five designated states can have free business trips.

Photo of the Week: CFF Viseu

CFF Viseu de Sus is a narrow-gauge forestry railway situated in Northern Romania, in the Carpathian Mountains. In the warm half of the year, every weekend tourist steam trains take over the valley of the Vaser river and there are some occasional winter runnings as well. On weekends the railway still serves the original purpose, transporting lumber and lumberjacks. The excursion trains visit about half the length of the railway from Viseu to Paltin. Most steam locomotives used were at Resita or Reghin in Romania as a variant of the Hungarian MÁVAG class 490 design.

• Additional photos of steam locomotive trains in Romania

A colourful railroad before it went out of service

Line 76: Diósjenő to Romhány, Hungary

The beginning of the year is always problematic for me as a teacher to find time for writing. Now that we are practically locked down due to the Corona virus it is time to go on a trip in our imagination by a train instead of actually taking one. The best way to stay safe is to stay at home.

If I had to travel in my head then an obvious choice for me was a railway I could not travel on in real life anymore. This post is probably going to get rather sentimental, I hope you do not mind. Some railways I never even had the chance to travel on, some I missed out on before closure due to being obsessed with other things or not believing they were really going to do that. This line is different: I spent a lot of time on this railway and I think I can be content with the number of photos I have of it, also with the interesting events and trains I had captured on it before it was closed in March 2007.
Normally the blog would invite you on some of the most spectacular railway journeys in Europe. Despite the hilly scenery, this line is not a huge spectacle; it may be nice compared to the lowlands that dominate Hungary, but you will not feel the urge to immediately go and walk the railway now that trains are absent.

My railway photography trips in 2019

2019 was a busy year for me. It, for starters, marked the launch of my English language travel blog (this one), and also has seen the blog decline in the number of posts. The sad reality is that I will not be able to make posts as frequently as I wanted to - but 2019 was at the same time a beautiful year with colourful trips to various locations that may be represented in upcoming posts on this blog. Altogether, partly because of my hobby, partly because of work, I have taken railway-related photos in 15 countries in Europe, which is a lot. Each country on its own is easily an adventure of weeks for a railway traveller and I could be to this many countries without being shocked by the different sensations is that this year I have only been to countries I have visited before, most of them many times already. But in those countries, there were many new locations to discover. Let's see, what my 2019 travels looked like!

2019 started by a photo charter called Fények Fotósvonata (Charter of Lights), which was an appropriate name for the night photography trip at the Királyrét Forestry Railway, a narrow-gauge railway in Hungary.

Narrow-gauge train to Cortina d'Ampezzo

Using the groundworks of the 70 cm Austrian military railway and utilising the reparations paid by World War losing Austria to Italy, Ferrovia della Dolomiti, a 950 mm/95 cm gauge narrow-gauge railway had been built of a total length of 65 km from Toblach in South-Tyrol through Cortina d'Ampezzo to Calalzo, where connection to the Italian mainlines was provided. The railway line was opened for civil travel in 1921 and electrification was finished by 1929 with 2700 V direct current.

Photo of the Week | The V43 at Exhibition

The V43 1110 is exhibited at the University of Óbuda, one of the most renowned districts of Budapest, Hungary and had replaced the V60,003 as a piece of exhibit by the University. The University has been named after Kálmán Kandó, developer of the 50 Hz railway electrification and the V60,003 on exhibit here had been one of the original Ganz-Kandó locomotives developed for the system. The locomotive has been moved to the Füsti - Hungarian Railway History Park and a more common class V43 locomotive has been brought in as a replacement. To date, this is the only V43 locomotive not only as an exhibit but anyway as all other surviving instances had been renumbered class 430, 431, 432 or 433.

La Gruyère

The little train from Montbovon to Palézieux over Bulle in French-speaking Switzerland

After my first post on this blog, which was about the M32 locomotive class of MÁV I would like to show you an example of the other kind of post which is going to be dominant in the contents here: a description of a railway line. As the interests of railfans can be really different I am going to offer a great variety of topics and in contrast to the less-known lowlands locomotive in the previous post here you will be able to read about a railway in the Swiss Alps, and about a region that you have almost certainly already heard about.

The spectacular alpine landscape attracts tourists both by train and with motor homes

Switzerland is known not only for its stunning landscapes but for the many different standard-gauge and narrow-gauge private railways that let you get to some tiny villages by train. The train which has affectionately been called "La Gruyère" is a metre-gauge railway operating mostly in the canton of Fribourg and is part of the company Transport publics Fribourgeois that also operates local bus lines and two standard-gauge railways, one between Bulle and Romon and another one from Fribourg to Ins via Morat. As it is normal in Switzerland, the route of the Gruyère is fully refurbished, allows for comparably high speeds and is used by many locals as well as tourists visiting the region.